A Chilean Wine Tour

Posted on April 25, 2019 by Janet

We spent 3 weeks of March cruising the valleys of Chile and Argentina drinking wine. A lot of wine. Mostly sipping and occasionally spitting, of course, as one does on a wine tasting tour, but always enjoying wine with dinner and often wine with lunch. And I discovered not only that these countries are producing a lot of excellent wines in the verdant valleys at the base of the Andes, but that ‘garden’ and ‘nature’ often intersect with ‘vineyard’ in a way the piqued my personal interest. This tour with Toronto’s Steve Thurlow, after all, was a bit of a balancing equation after 3 weeks touring gardens in New Zealand in 2018, aka “Janet’s tour”. Now we were celebrating Doug’s passion, wine-collecting, while escaping a slug of nasty Canadian winter in the southern hemisphere. So…. what did we see that might interest my blog readers? Have a look below. (And I promise to get back to the last few New Zealand gardens very soon.)

Approaching Chile – We flew overnight, a 10-1/2 hour flight from Toronto, and as dawn broke over the Andes as we neared Santiago, I looked down at the most unusual cloud formation over the Pacific Ocean. Later, as we listened to various winemakers talk about the effect of marine fog and the cold Humboldt Current on grape growing, I realized that what I had seen was not cloud, but a blanket of marine fog. The Humboldt Current originates in waters north of the Antarctic circle and flows along the coast of Chile to northern Peru. It is named for Alexander von Humboldt, the 19^th century Prussian naturalist who explored South America and recorded the temperatures of the current in his 1846 book Cosmos.

Santiago, Chile – We spent a few days in Chile’s capital and took a hop-on-hop-off bus to gain a fast understanding of this city. With a population of 7-million (2017 figures) across its 37 municipalities (conurbation) in a nation of 18-million people, it is the seventh largest city in Latin America. In the residential areas under San Cristobal hill, where I made the photo below after arriving in a cable car, it also has a lovely green canopy.

Although I saw a lot of Chilean wine palms on our trip, this view of Santiago is framed by a Canary Island date palm (Phoenix canariensis). With its central Chile location, Santiago has a semi-arid Mediterranean climate.

That night, I had my first pisco sour cocktail at the rooftop bar of the Magnolia Hotel, where we stayed. Here we see containers of society garlic (Tulbaghia violacea), which we would see used prolifically in many more Chilean gardens.

Veramonte, Casablanca Valley, Chile – After driving out of Santiago via a tunnel through the coastal mountains, we visited our first winery. In the gardens here, I saw old favourites, goldenrod (Solidago sp.) and Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia). Like many vineyards, Veramonte subscribes to sustainable practices and encourages an ecological balance, which includes gardens…..

….. and ponds for birds that eat insects, and often…..

….. the inclusion of native Chilean plants like romerillo (Baccharis linearis), which we saw along the highways.

The mountains are never far away from Chilean vineyards, and often grapes are grown on steep slopes of the foothills.

There were also the brown bracts of artichokes…..

…. and of course, lots of luscious grapes, like these bunches of Syrah. If you go to Chile in March, you hit the middle of harvest time (the equivalent of our September), which begins with Sauvignon Blanc and ends with Carmenere.

Concón, Chile – After our lunch at Veramonte, we drove to the seashore near Concón, where our hotel for the next 3 nights, the Radisson Blu Acqua Hotel, featured crashing waves right below our window…..

…..and an amazing living wall over the parking lot.

Casas del Bosque, Casablanca Valley, Chile – This vineyard, which we visited the following morning, featured a pretty garden…..

….and a shrub/small tree we would see a lot in Chile, crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica).

Like New Zealand, we saw our fair share of agapanthus too.

Viña Emiliana, Casablanca Valley, Chile – Our luncheon tasting was at this organic, biodynamic vineyard which featured some principles like planting and pruning according to the moon phases, using interplantings of nitrogen-enriching legumes, etc. They had water gardens…..

…. and baby alpacas! That pretty plant in the photo below is Mexican sage (Salvia leucantha); we would see a lot of that in Chile and Argentina, too.

I bought my only wine here, a really lovely Rosé which I served last weekend for Easter dinner. (Plus I loved the wrapping!)

Viña Casa Marin, San Antonio Valley, Chile – It was a thrill to visit this winery and meet Maria Luz Marin, aka Marilu, Chile’s first female oenologist. There I am in green raising a glass of a very nice Sauvignon Blanc.

Valparaiso, Chile – An evening visit to Valparaiso saw us touring part of this historic city on foot, and using the 1893 Artillería ascensor or funicular railway to negotiate one of the many hillsides.

Valparaiso was the main port of Latin America for goods from Europe until the construction of the Panama Canal, after which its fortunes declined. It is still a major port and we looked out on the view of the harbour…

…. which was very busy with containers being loaded.

Walking up and down city streets, the decline is still evident through the city, though it is now enjoying a renaissance as a cultural centre. It is also a UNESCO heritage site.

Sweet little gardens adorned brightly painted houses.

Street art is a big thing in parts of Valparaiso. I loved this staircase leading to one of the more famous mural lanes. It says Tu no puedes comprar al sol – “You cannot buy the sun.”

This painting “Young Girl’ by France’s Mr Papillon for Hostel Voyage is famous in street art circles.

And how about these little pop bottle windowboxes?

Viña Chocalán, San Antonia Valley, Chile – We enjoyed our morning tasting at the Malvilla vineyard of the Toro family winery Chocalán…

…..one of two vineyards owned by the Toros, who began 60 years ago as wine bottle producers.

We sipped whites and rosés in the shade of a grape-laden pergola…….

…. followed by a winery tour with Aida Toro, who encouraged us to taste the Sauvignon Blanc grapes. While ripe wine grapes usually taste sweet and delicious, it’s the complex development of tannins and other factors that separate the wine from the grape.

We had a second Chocalan tasting indoors, in a room with a wonderful view of the mountains.

We finished with a lovely lunch at a long family table out in the vineyards where we enjoyed a delicious barbecue and more wine.

Cono Sur Vineyards and Winery, Colchagua Valley, Chile – This big operation, owned by Concha Y Toro, was our first winery in the Colchagua Valley. It was a hit with our group, not just for the lovely 19^th century guest house that serves as the reception area…….

….. but for the bicycles they offered to let guests cycle out to the distant vineyards, just as the grape pickers still do today.

Two decades ago, Cono Sur (named for the ‘southern cone’ of Chile) switched to sustainable agriculture practices, featuring integrated vineyard management and carbon footprint reduction. They use sheep to curtail weeds and geese to eat a beetle that harms spring grapes. The geese are kept caged at night at night in spring against foxes and later in the season because they love the taste of ripe grapes.

Cono Sur also uses native species as companion plants to introduce an ecological balance to the vineyard, much like the natural hedgerows of British farm fields. Shown here are salvia roja (Salvia microphylla) and the Chilean pepper tree (Schinus molle). Nearby was sweet-scented lemon verbena (Aloysia virgata).

We were fortunate to see some of the manual and mechanical wine-sorting at Cono Sur during our visit. Leaves, rachis (the main bunch stem) and individual grape stems are composted outdoors over the Chilean winter and the compost is then used to feed the grapevines.

Here’s a look at some of the Cono Sur winery harvest action, and the tasting remarks of one of the winery’s winemakers, Carol Koch.

Yes, we tasted each one of these wines…..

…..followed by a delicious lunch featuring an unusual, beautiful and delicious avocado-frosted savoury torte.

Viña Ventisquero, Colchagua Valley, Chile – We were told to wear comfortable shoes for our late afternoon visit to this hillside winery……

….. and as I walked up the switchback dirt road in my sparkly flip-flops, I kicked myself for leaving the hiking shoes at the hotel.

This has made a real difference in relationships and in the confidence of many men. purchase sildenafil This is very essential to note viagra levitra because drug interactions should often be considered to ensure that your well being and your life as a entire isn’t threatened. So, always check the vascular system with your doctor to cialis pills for sale avoid these health dysfunction. It also reduces the effect of prolactin. tadalafil online no prescription

Note that many of the vines here are single staked, rather than trained laterally. This is common on steep hillsides.

Ventisquero means an exposed, windy place on the mountains and this lovely vineyard aerie gave us a spectacular view of the surrounding valley.

Thanks to tour member Kathy who captured me photographing the vineyard.

Our evening ended with a stunning sunset.

Viña MontGras, Colchagua Valley, Chile – This winery stop was such fun because their own guide, Marcelo, was a born entertainer. He quizzed us constantly.

Out in the vineyard, he taught us the shapes of the various varietal leaves.

In the winery, he gave us a ‘tasting’ quiz (including ungainly photo of the blogger, below) and asked us to guess. It was easy: ‘Sauvignon Blanc’.

Chile suffered a devastating earthquake in 2010. (In fact, Chile is the site of the most powerful earthquake ever recorded, the May 22, 1960 Valdivia 9.5 M_wearthquake, which left 2 million people homeless.) At our lunch after our tasting in the courtyard, our attention was drawn to the earthquake-mitigating beam joints in MontGras’s building construction.

Viña Montes, Colchagua Valley, Chile – Our last visit in the Colchagua Valley was to Aurelio Montes’s elegant winery.

We walked across a large ornamental pool that is used to circulate water in the winery, including a fountain in the reception area, according to Feng Shui principles.

And if you like that, you might enjoy listening to the Gregorian Chant that Montes plays constaly for the wines aging in the barrel rooms.

Montes features a multi-floor gravity flow for its winemaking, eliminating the need for pumps. You can see the orange-wrapped chutes leading to the fermentation tanks in their modern facility. Following our tour, we were bused up the hillside to an al fresco barbecue dinner.

Viña Santa Ema, Maipo Valley, Chile – Architecture was front and centre at this family vineyard…..

….. where our wine tasting included some very nice nibbles before a lunch.

Casa Real Hotel – Santa Rita, Maipo Valley, Chile – By the time we got to this venerable old hotel owned by Santa Rita wines – including its historic, 40-hectare estate garden – I was a bit wiped out. Given that we were spending two nights at this luxurious 16-room hotel, and this was our guest room….

…. including a delightful sitting room, I decided to play hooky from the next day’s tour stop, Santa Carolina wines and just hang out and investigate the property.

This is the front of the hotel, and though it was almost out of bloom, the bougainvillea draped over the cypress is reputed to be the biggest in Chile. Viña Santa Rita was founded in 1880 by the businessman Don Domingo Fernández Concha. As well as establishing his adjacent vineyards, he hired the German architect Teodoro Burchard to design this building, his summer home….

….as well as the adjoining neo-Gothic chapel….

…. especially for his daughter’s wedding.

I loved this loggia.

We toured the estate before and after our wine tasting – the smell of jasmine was intoxicating.

The garden was designed for Don Domingo Fernández Concha in 1882-85 by the French-born landscape designer Guillermo Renner (1843-1924), who was also the Director of Gardens of Santiago and the Municipal Plant Breeder and is considered to be the “father of landscaping in Chile”. It mixes elements of Italian, French and English styles.

In a spacious pond, we found a pair of black-necked songs who seemed to be singing plaintively for their supper.

Amidst the abundant orchards and citrus groves…..

…. and arboretum-like plantings of trees from around the world, like these ghost gums (Eucalyptus)….

….. was a very modern swimming pool.

A surprising feature of the Casa Real estate was a beautiful, modern museum, Musee Andino, featuring an amazing collection of pre-Columbian artifacts…

…. including pottery, textiles, sculpture, tools and a roomful of gold antiquities.

On my walk outside the estate, I looked longingly beyond a fence onto a nearby hillside where the native flora included the Chilean cactus Echinopsis chilensis. That splash of scarlet on the side of some of the cacti is not flowers but a parasitic cactus mistletoe (Tristerix aphylla). Oh how I would have loved to climb that hill!

Viña Perez Cruz, Maipo Valley, Chile – With the Casa Real as our base, we visited this nearby winery/almond plantation with the most spectacular architecture, designed by José Cruz Ovalle, who used curved laminated wood to create optimal air movement within the building….

…. and built Inca-inspired pirca stone walls everywhere!

Viña Errázuriz, Aconcagua Valley, Chile – My favourite winery was also our last one in Chile. Beautiful Errázuriz took the honours for landscape design with dramatic entrance gardens and reflecting pools leading to the original 1870 bodega and winery constructed by founder Don Maximiano Errázuriz over 15 years. The Errázuriz name is very familiar to Chileans, since four men in the family ultimately became president of the nation. The terraced hillside of the Aconcagua Valley behind is actually the base of one of the foothills of the Andes, which we would cross the next morning.

Scalloped garden beds flanked the vineyards and drew the eye towards the modern Don Maximiano Iconic Winery, built in 2010 and designed to look like a ship sailing through a sea of vines.

I loved the way the line of reflecting pools seems to extend up into the linear grape plantings. Bubblers come on intermittently to keep these pools clear.

We saw South African native society garlic (Tulbaghia violacea) in many gardens in Chile.

Designed by architect Samuel Claro out of bleached concrete, the Don Maximiano Iconic Winery was built to bring Errazuriz wines into the 21^st century, using cutting edge winemaking technologies, environmental sustainability and solar and geothermal energy. It is used exclusively for Errazuriz’s high-end red labels.

Grasses and low shrubs frame the view of the vineyards from the entrance.

Inside, the process of fermentation and aging features gravity movement of fruit and liquids from the top floor to the tanks and barrels on the two floors below. All three floors can be seen in the image below.

For our Errazuriz wine-tasting, we moved to the old winery where bricks were mortared together almost a century-and-a-half ago with a mixture of egg whites and sand. The cellar rooms alone took 5 years to complete.

Casks in the old cellar are made of raulí beech (Nothofagus alpina), a native Chilean tree.

After the tasting, we moved to the outdoor restaurant where we were treated to delicious appetizers….

….. and a lovely lunch.

It seemed like a fitting place to say goodbye to Chile with a vacation snapshot of Doug and me. (And this is officially my longest blog ever…..)

Next up on the tour: Through the Andes into Argentina.

Orange: Three Fruits & a Fish – Part Two

Posted on October 29, 2016 by Janet

In my last colour blog Orange: Three Fruits & A Fish – Part One, we explored some beautiful orange-flowered perennials. Here I’ll offer up some hardy roses, shrubs and vines with orange blossoms or colourful orange fruit, then an assortment of orange-flowered annual and tropical flowers.

Shrubs & Vines

Flowering quince (Chaenomeles sp.) is one of those spring shrubs that appear in April or May, its salmon or tangerine blossoms emerging on spined branches to outshine even colourful tulips and daffodils, and attracting early bees to its pollen-rich stamens. Old-fashioned and much-planted in the 1950s, you don’t see flowering quince in many contemporary gardens today, which is a pity. The ones I’ve photographed have been in the cemetery, like this C. x speciosa at Mount Pleasant Cemetery…

…or in a botanical garden, like this exquisitely-pruned, little specimen nestled against a rock in the Japanese Garden at Montreal Botanical Garden.

Spring is also the season for wonderful rhododendrons, and we can find some good orange-flowered examples. For fifty years now (since 1957), the ‘Lights’ breeding program at the Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of Minnesota has produced some rugged, hardy azaleas (botanically rhododendrons) in a spectacular range of colours. ‘Spicy Lights’ was bred in 1987, and is a beautiful, rich salmon-orange with yellow blotches.

I love strolling along the Rhododendron Walk at Vancouver’s Van Dusen Gardens in May, when the Japanese azaleas are in bloom. Though it’s not hardy for us here in Toronto, Rhododendron molle. ssp. japonicum (USDA Zone 6) is one of my favourites there, especially with its contrasting groundcover of blue Spanish bluebells (Endymion hispanicus).

Honeysuckle vines are super-hardy, bring hummingbirds, and look fabulous with their orange & scarlet blossoms spangled over a wall or fence. This is Lonicera ‘Mandarin’, developed at the University of British Columbia.

And this is old-fashioned Lonicera x brownii ‘Dropmore Scarlet’, developed as a cross between L. sempervirens and L. hirsuta in the 1950s by the famous breeder Frank Skinner in Dropmore, Manitoba. It can grow to 12 feet (4 metres) when happy. Note the eye-pleasing effect of growing an orange-flowered vine on a brick wall – and orange brick is a subject all its own, a backdrop that can make or break a garden vignette.

One of the bigger North American native vines (to 30 feet or 10 metres) is trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans), but it must have a strong support. As its Wikipedia page says: “The vigor of the trumpet vine should not be underestimated. In warm weather, it puts out huge numbers of tendrils that grab onto every available surface, and eventually expand into heavy woody stems several centimeters in diameter. It grows well on arbors, fences, telephone poles, and trees, although it may dismember them in the process. Ruthless pruning is recommended.” Hummingbirds and bees love trumpet creeper flowers.

Roses

Not being a rosarian, I can only suggest a few orange roses that come recommended. One is ‘Westerland’, a large-flowered, repeat-blooming, upright shrub or climber that can reach 12 feet (4 metres). Its highly-fragrant flowers are produced continuously from June to frost. Bred by Kordes in 1969, it is the recipient of an AGM (Award of Garden Merit) from England’s Royal Horticultural Society. This is ‘Westerland’ at New York Botanical Garden’s fabulous Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden.

Another tall, fragrant climber with pale, apricot-orange blossoms is ‘Alchymist’.

David Austin Roses has bred many lovely apricot- and peach-flowered shrub roses. Below is ‘Lady of Shalott’ (4-5 feet tall), an AGM winner and considered to be one of the hardiest and most disease-resistant of the English roses.

There are too many shrub roses and floribundas with orange flowers to mention, but I very much like the award-winning floribunda ‘Fellowship’.

Orange Fruit

Apart from the orange, bronze and apricot hues that many deciduous trees and shrubs take on in autumn (see my blog on orange fall colour here), there are many with jewelled orange fruits in late summer and fall, too. One of the prettiest is ‘Afterglow’ winterberry (Ilex verticillata), shown here with purple-fruited beautyberry (Callicarpa dichotoma ‘Early Amethyst’).

And I must mention firethorn (Pyracantha coccinea), which features a number of orange-fruited cultivars, including ‘Orange Glow’.

Annuals & Tropicals:

Now we get into the fun part of my orange treatment: the flowering annuals, tender bulbs and perennials, and tropical plants. Let’s start with the newish dark-leafed little Begonia ‘Sparks Will Fly’.

My pal and container whiz, Toronto Botanical Garden horticulturist Paul Zammit, worked this one into a spectacular urn creation, along with Begonia boliviensis and orange-toned cannas, lantanas and coleus.

And if you had a peek at that container blog, you’ll see that Paul does love a little orange, including the row of window boxes, below, featuring kitchen herbs parsley and sage with a mix of Calibrachoa MiniFamous iGeneration Orange and Can Can Terracotta with the grasses Hakonechloa ‘All Gold’ and Carex buchananii.

Hardworking calibrachoas (million bells or mini-petunias) have become mainstays of annual container design in the past decade or so. I loved this combination of Calibrachoa ‘Superbells Peach’ and ‘Superbells Blue’ with ‘Purple Wave’ petunias in a window-box in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada.

And can you say “coral” (i.e. salmon)? The fabulous duo shown below is Calibrachoa ‘Superbells Coral Punch’ and Verbena ‘Superbena Coral Red’.

I’ve been a fan of the ‘Profusion’ series of zinnias since their launch in the 1990s. I especially loved the way Vancouver’s Van Dusen Gardens scattered Zinnia ‘Profusion Orange’ through this intermingled planting with Salvia patens ‘Cambridge Blue’, bunny tail grass (Lagurus ovatus) and purple verbena (V. rigida).

I’ve included Zinnia ‘Profusion Orange’ in my own container on the deck at Lake Muskoka, below, along with yellow and apricot African daisies (Osteospermum ‘Symphony Series’) and orange nasturtiums (Tropaeolum majus).

African daisies or osteospermums come in a range of orange shades. When I was at wonderful Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, Pennsylvania, I was entranced by the combination below of apricot-flowered Osteospermum ‘Zion Orange’ with Diascia ‘Flirtation Orange’, caressed by the grassy, bronze-orange blades of Carex testacea.

Nasturtiums, of course, offer a serious orange jolt of their own. Here is Tropaeolum majus ‘Alaska’ with the signet marigold Tagetes tenuifolia ‘Tangerine Gem’. And guess what? Both are edible!

And there’s a plus to nasturtiums: hummingbirds love them.

Speaking of hummingbirds, you will almost certainly attract them to your containers if you include one of their favourite flowers, hummingbird mint or agastache. This is Agastache ‘Kudos Coral’, and it’s a good hummer lure.
Eat foods that are rich in Vitamins B6 and B12, and folic acid. levitra 20 mg Among the women who are past the stage of menopause, excessive bleeding may occur after they have been consumed. female viagra buy Avoid Penegra if you have cheapest cialis deeprootsmag.org recently taken nitrate drugs for heart problems. However erectile dysfunction relates buy vardenafil levitra to the state in 1976.

I also love the little Agastache ‘Apricot Sprite’ – it’s perfect for pots and hanging baskets, and I’ve even found that it reseeds in my USDA Zone 5 containers.

Back to marigolds, I’ve never been a fan of the big African numbers (Tagetes erecta), so stiff and regimented they seem to be suited only to park plantings. But I’d certainly love to try the willowy (18 inch – 45 cm) Tagetes ‘Burning Embers’, which I found in my friend Marnie White’s garden. Some seed sources refer to this as a selection of a species Tagetes linnaeus, (and say something about it being found in Linnaeus’s Uppsala garden) but that binomial doesn’t seem to be valid. I assume it’s simply a good form of Tagetes patula.

When I first saw orange petunias, I was taken aback as they’re a brave, new colour in those old-fashioned annuals. The one below is ‘Sun Spun Orange’ – what a fabulous container plant it would be!

Fuchsias can be orange, too, and are a good container solution for partly shaded spots. The creative combination, below, features Fuchsia ‘Gartenmeister’, Lantana ‘Landmark Sunrise’, and purple browallia, along with other annuals.

Lantanas come in many shades of peach, apricot and orange and, depending what else is in bloom, offer sweet foraging for butterflies.

Another edible flower that’s a fixture in kitchen gardens is pot marigold or Calendula officinalis. It comes in singles, doubles and shades of yellow, gold and orange. I liked this simple combo with chives (Allium schoenoprasum).

Speaking of kitchen gardens, have you noticed the great breeding work that’s being done with amaranths to take them out of the grain field and transform them into bold standouts in the ornamental border? This is Amaranthus ‘Golden Giant’.

And this is what it looks like backing up purple anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum).

Gloriosa daisies are deservedly popular and add a little Hollywood pizzazz to common old blackeyed susans. Of the many variations in colour, likely the best selection for adding bronze-orange to the garden (there’s no pure orange) is Rudbeckia hirta ‘Cappucino’.

This is how ‘Cappucino’ looks with ‘Lemon Gem’ marigolds and purple Verbena rigida in a bed at Van Dusen Gardens. Pretty nice, right? And it’s easy to grow from seed.

Now, if you want a true-orange ‘daisy’ flower, you need only choose butterfly-friendly Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia), either the straight species – which can grow 4-6 feet tall shown at left and middle, below, or a dwarf form such as ‘Fiesta del Sol’, shown at right with Salvia farinacea.

The most impressive ‘daisies’ of all are sunflowers (Helianthus annuus), and though none are pure orange, you can find some burnt-orange selections like ‘Evening Colors’, ‘Earthwalker’, ‘Crimson Queen’ and ‘Autumn Beauty’.

I won’t bore you with orange-flowered pelargoniums (border geraniums) because we’d be here all night, but just a mention of two with stunning foliage. The first is ‘Indian Dunes’, below, – and I do like those salmon-orange blooms.

The second is ‘Vancouver Centennial’ – invaluable for its wine-brown leaves and delicate orange flowers.

Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) has become popular to grow as annual flower in recent years as more gardeners look to attract monarch butterflies to their gardens. Like all milkweeds, its foliage is food for monarch caterpillars, and it does look pretty in combination with plants like annual Verbena bonariensis, below.

Zingy gomphrenas have seen their popularity surge – and they’re fabulous as cut flowers and dried flowers, too. If you want to try one in orange, search out Gomphrena ‘QIS Orange’, shown below with purple Ageratum houstonianum.

Ursinia anthemoides ‘Solar Fire’ veers a little from apricot-orange towards gold, but I’m including it here because I think it’s an annual that should be grown more. It looked lovely at the Montreal Botanical Garden with Echium vulgare ‘Blue Bedder’.

I’m finishing my book-length (!) dissertation on orange flowers with a handful of dahlias. Tender tubers, they are easily grown in warm soil in spring and must be stored indoors for winter. Goodness knows there are myriad dahlias of all shapes and sizes in orange, but the array below shows some of my favourites, including the aptly-named cactus dahlia ‘Bodacious’, top; and below, two more modestly-sized border varieties: the bee-friendly ‘Bishop of Oxford’ left, and ‘Pooh’, right.

Orange Flourishes

Woman does not live by Flora alone, of course. There are other ways to bring the colour orange into the garden without actually growing it. When I visited gardens in Portland, Oregon, I was delighted to see these whimsical orange accessories in Nancy Goldman’s funky backyard lair.

And do you agree with me that this Toronto garden just amped up the cool factor with bright orange chairs beside all those bobbing purple alliums?

But really, orange in the garden doesn’t have to be furniture, and it doesn’t have to be splashy. It can be as tiny and perfect as a fanciful glass bird sailing away on an ocean of frothy foliage. (Thank you Michael Renaud of Toronto’s Horticultural Design.)

And on that final “October is my Orange month” note, I will sail away into November, when we shall reconvene in The Paintbox Garden for a little “wine-tasting”. I’ll bring out some of my finest burgundies for you to sample.

La Vie en Rose(s)

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Janet

La Vie en Rose…. I am not a chanteuse, but I love Edith Piaf. And I am not a rosarian, but I do love roses. That doesn’t mean I’ve actually grown many roses – other than a very constrained ‘New Dawn’ (see below) and a 5-year fling with the yellow-flowered Father Hugo’s rose (Rosa xanthina) which ultimately died in the border, leaving in its wake its progenitor, the pale-pink rootstock dog rose (Rosa canina). Before I pulled it out, I popped a sprig in a vase and photographed it. Amen. Rest in peace.

PEGGY ROCKEFELLER ROSE GARDEN, NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN

But despite steering clear of roses and their fickle needs, I’ve seen many hundreds of them in the 25 years I’ve been photographing plants, and every June I indulge a little fantasy in which I have a garden spilling with their fragrant blossoms. It’s easy to feel that rose fever, when you find yourself wandering the paths of, say, the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, as I’ve done for their annual June Rose Festival.

It’s a hugely popular crowd event in early June, with food vendors at the entrance.

It’s in gardens like Peggy Rockefeller that you can see storied roses at the height of their beauty, like ‘New Dawn’ (Wichuraiana, 1930), below, one of the classic, low-maintenance pink climbing roses. I grow this climber myself in a 4 foot-square garden (why did I plant it there? who knows?) against the brick support of my front porch, forgetting to prune it until June, hacking it back when it threatens to trail over the cars in the driveway and generally ignoring it in its spot behind an overly-large boxwood. It has never been sprayed or fertilized, is rarely watered, and gives me sprays of cupped, light-scented, tea-type blooms over the veranda railing in early summer. When happy, it’s a massive thing, growing 10 feet (3 m) tall and 15 feet (5 m) wide – enough to cover a garage wall (And yes, since this is my second PINK blog for the month of May, I’m going to be focusing entirely on pink roses!)

Below is another beauty from Peggy Rockefeller, ‘Climbing Pinkie’ (Cl. Polyantha, 1952) with masses of small pink flowers on almost thornless canes that can reach 10 x 10 feet (3 metres). It’s considered fairly disease-resistant and is an excellent re-bloomer. Because of its growing habit, many gardeners like to train this rose along the top of a fence and let the flowers cascade.

Paul’s Himalayan Musk (Hybrid Musk, c. 1899) is another giant that finds ample room to show off at Peggy Rockefeller Rose garden. A Royal Horticultural Society award-winner, this rambler festooned with masses of drooping clusters of small, double, pale-pink blossoms can reach a stunning 40 feet (13 m) in height in favourable conditions. Shade-tolerant and slightly fragrant, it flowers only once, but with such abundance it can be forgiven for taking a rest for the balance of summer.

If you like landscape roses (I find them a little boring, frankly, as I don’t expect the ‘queen of flowers’ to be “landscape” anything), there are now lots of really good pink ones from which to choose, including the Drift Series from Star Roses. They had several Drifts at Peggy Rockefeller, often interplanted with giant mauve Allium cristophii. Below is ‘Pink Drift’.

EXPLORER ROSES

One of my very favourite roses in the Rockefeller garden, not least for its Canadian heritage, ‘John Davis’ is a gorgeous, ultra-hardy, modern shrub rose, bred in 1977 as part of the Explorer series by the late Canadian rose-breeder extraordinare Felicitas Svejda. Her breeding program to develop shrub roses that rivalled old French roses for beauty while managing to withstand the harshness of Canadian prairie winters (many to -40F-40C) produced some 25 roses from the mid-70s, all with the names of early explorers. ‘John Davis’ is on many rose-lovers’ “favourite” list, with its masses of fragrant, clear-pink blossoms in early summer on a 7 foot (2.1 metre) tall shrub that can be trained as a climber.

Now let’s head across the border to the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington, Ontario, where we find another wonderful Explorer rose. At 10 feet (3 metres) tall and wide, ‘William Baffin’ (Explorer shrub rose, 1983) is the biggest of Felicitas Svejda’s ultra-hardy introductions (she bred it in 1974 but it was released 9 years later). Gardeners who’ve tried to corral its thorny canes aren’t in a hurry to repeat the experience but the masses of cerise-pink flowers borne in clusters in early summer are truly a magnificent sight.

And bees, like the bumble bee below, love the exposed stamens of single or semi-double roses like ‘William Baffin’. Though roses don’t offer nectar, their pollen is an excellent source of protein for bees.

OLD ROSES

When I want to sniff the incredible perfume of the old garden roses, I make my way to the collection beds at the Royal Botanical Garden. There I can find most of the classics – if I’m lucky, even before they’ve been hit hard by black spot, which tends to be a common problem with many of them. Here are a dozen of my favourites in montage form.

In case you can’t read the caption, they include:

1^st row, left to right: ‘Belle de Crecy’ (Gallica, 1829), ‘Ispahan’ (Damask, 1832), ‘Henri Martin’ (Moss, 1863); ‘Variegata di Bologna’ (Bourbon, 1909).

2^nd row, left to right: ‘Fantin Latour’ (Centifolia, 1900), ‘Cardinal Richelieu’ (Gallica, pre-1847), Rosa muscosa (Common Moss Rose), ‘Petite Lisette’ (1817-Alba/Damask).

3^rd row, left to right: ‘Mme Isaac Pereire’ (Bourbon, 1881), Rosa gallica ‘Versicolor’ (Rosa Mundi), ‘Charles de Mills’ (Gallica, year unknown), ‘Tuscany Superb’ (Gallica, 1837)

Its beautifully-shaped, neon-pink blossoms made ‘Zéphirine Drouhin’ (Bourbon, 1868) a favourite of accomplished gardeners like Vita Sackville-West, and it continues to enjoy popularity today, especially since its branches are thornless. (Those canes tend to flop around, so it should be trellised.) Like all the Bourbons, it is intensely-perfumed and the flowers look like those of the most exquisite hybrid tea. I only wish Wave Hill Gardens in the Bronx, New York, where I photographed Zéphirine, below, could find a more felicitous background for those blossoms than orange brick. Design hint: pink roses look best against olive green and charcoal grey.

With its deep cerise-magenta flowers, the Apothecary rose, Rosa gallica var. officinalis, is another old rose with a very long history. About 4 feet (1.3 metres) tall and wide, extremely fragrant, reasonably disease-resistant and free-flowering in early summer, it is known historically from around 1400 when it was used by ‘officinals’ or apothecaries for medicinal use. I often find this lovely rose in medicinal herb gardens.

Hence it should be consumed taking into consideration that the Commission really wanted incentives to be provided via pay and promotions, what would be the best way to enact this? levitra generika When evaluations into ethics and compliance programs are administered, ethic leaders look to see if processes exist that associate the company values with employee’s’ evaluations. That will in turn increase blood flow to the penis, thus helping the user to maintain erection for a longer time and is usually lost before ejaculation. http://appalachianmagazine.com/tag/north-carolina/ generic levitra online When this condition goes uncheck, this can lead to a shocking affect into the little finger and ring viagra online continue reading description finger, if the nerve is irritated. If you look at your dollar bill, it says accounts receivable, so that your silver certificate was replaced by the promise of the federal government to make your dollar worth a appalachianmagazine.com discount levitra dollar.

DR. HUEY

Speaking of strong colour statements, ‘Dr. Huey’ (Hybrid Wichuraiana, 1914) is an interesting rose. Seen below at Chanticleer Garden (have you read my two-part blog on my favourite public garden?) outside Philadelphia intertwined fetchingly with a light-purple clematis, it was commonly used in the U.S. as a rootstock under budded roses, including hybrid teas and many of the David Austin English roses (in contrast to “own-root” roses). As such, it often emerges as suckering growth – either alongside the purchased rose (quite comical, when it soars high above a yellow hybrid tea) or in its place. But that vigor below-ground does not translate to disease-resistance above-ground, since ‘Dr. Huey’ is known to suffer considerably from black spot and other diseases. Still, those dark, wine-pink flowers on long, outspread canes are a very romantic look, and if you can keep it healthy, cheeky interloper or not, it’s a beauty.

MODERN SHRUB ROSES

Perhaps no rose was as popular in the 1990s in my neck of the woods than Bonica, below In fact, it was named “the world’s favourite rose” in 1997 (but who ran the contest? hmmmm….). Bonica is what I call it, but like many plants these days, that’s just a trade name and its actual cultivar name is ‘MEIdomonac’. Bred by French rose giant Meilland, it’s a lovely thing . Because of its compact 3-4 foot (1-1.3 metre) size can be incorporated into a perennial border of pinks, blues and purples, grown on its own as a specimen, or used as a low hedge. It’s very serviceable, with lovely flowers that look like ‘old roses’. Unlike most old roses, however, it will re-bloom throughout summer when deadheaded.

At the Toronto Botanical Garden, there’s a prominent bed where two modern shrub roses grow in a pretty, all-pink confection The David Austin English Rose Mary Rose (‘AUSmary’) is at the rear, growing to about 4 feet x 4 feet (1.3 m x 1.3 m) while the front features the sweet rose ‘The Fairy’ (Polyantha, 1932).

‘The Fairy’ makes a great companion to English lavender, shown below at Toronto’s Spadina House.

It is disease-resistant and an exceptionally long bloomer, often gathering frost on its last little buds in late autumn. Aren’t those blossoms sweet?

Speaking of Spadina House, I do love the bountiful rose display at the front of the historic home, including the old rambler ‘Dorothy Perkins’ (Wichuriaiana, 1901), below. It was the first rose released by American rose giant Jackson & Perkins, and named by breeder Alvin Miller for Charles Perkins’ granddaughter. Its brash pink might not be for everyone, but it is a party when it’s in flower in early summer, but sadly often plagued with mildew and diseases.

And while I have you at Spadina House, let me show you another charming companion for early-season roses. Look at these enchanting columbines (Aquilegia vulgaris) below, cozying up to the beautiful, scented, hardy rugosa hybrid rose ‘Thérèse Bugnet’.

Many of English rose breeder David Austin’s introductions have the look and perfume of old French roses; some even bear evocative French names. Redouté (‘AUSpale’), below, is a light-pink sport of Mary Rose (mentioned above), and the same height, with ‘fruity old rose’ fragrance. Named for the renowned 19th century painter of old roses, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, it is meltingly beautiful and would have made a prized still life subject for the artist.

Back to Toronto Botanical Garden for another little landscape rose, this time from German rose breeder Kordes. This is cherry-pink Sweet Vigorosa (KORdatura), which looks right at home with June perennials like Veronica longifolia ‘Eveline’, left, Achillea tomentosa, right, and coreopsis in the rear.

ROSES AND CLEMATIS

Growing roses with clematis is a long tradition, especially in European gardens. It’s best to choose a clematis that can be cut back to buds near the ground in spring, i.e. one that flowers on new growth. For the tallest pink roses, a purple Viticella like ‘Etoile Violette’ or ‘Polish Spirit’ would be a good match. In the photo below from Deep Cove Chalet Restaurant (one of my favourite spots to dine) outside Victoria, B.C., we see mauve-pink Clematis ‘Hagley Hybrid’ intertwined with a tallish shrub rose or low climbing rose. I love that look.

Since we’re talking pink clematis, I’ll mention one of my favourites: ‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’ (NOT Bouchard, as it’s often written). This bubblegum-pink vine would be perfect clambering through a pale-pink shrub rose – like one of the David Austins, e.g. Redouté or Queen of Sweden.

Clematis ‘Alionushka’ is a non-twining clematis (the herbaceous C. integrifolia is one parent) that needs something to support it, so it’s a very good candidate for training up into a shrub rose of about the same height.

ONE MORE COLD-HARDY ROSE

Since I’m a prairie girl originally (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan until the age of 6 weeks, when I left for the balmy west coast city of Victoria, B.C., dragging my parents behind me), I’m going to end my homage to pink roses with one that many gardeners consider to be vastly underused. ‘Prairie Joy’ is a product of Canada’s Morden Research Station in Manitoba, a vase-shaped, upright rose to 5-6 feet (2 metres) with a flush of the most gorgeous pink blossoms in early summer, followed by generous repeat flowering throughout summer. Since the very thorny canes tend to swoop down, it is recommended that ‘Prairie Joy’ be trellised or tied loosely to an obelisk.

And on that very pink note, we bid adieu to May and welcome in rose season. But don’t forget to join me in early June, when we’ll be taking a promenade through PURPLE in a gorgeous Toronto garden!

Fall Foliage: Yellows & Golds

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Janet

This is a fact: red & orange fall colours would not be nearly so thrilling without the beautiful contrast of neighbouring yellows and golds.

If you’ve followed along as I offered up some lovely trees, shrubs and perennials whose leaves turn red in autumn, and a second group whose foliage turns glorious shades of orange, apricot and bronze, I’m sure you’re waiting with bated breath for the final installment. No? Well, anyway, those would be the many species that turn yellow and gold. As we know, autumn colours result from the breakdown of chlorophyll (the ‘green’ pigment) as temperatures cool and days shorten in late summer and early fall. Yellow leaves owe their brilliance to the presence of a group of orange-yellow pigments called the carotenoids, and within that group, the yellow xanthophylls (the other group being the orange carotenes on display in my last post). Not only are xanthophylls found underlying the chlorophyll in leaves, where they absorb sunlight in a specific spectral range, they are also responsible for the petal colour of yellow flowers – all those “damned yellow composites” (DYCs), i.e. daisies like coreopis, heliopsis and silphium, among hundreds of others. Even the yellow in egg yolks comes from a xanthophyll called lutein in the hen’s diet. And, of course, xanthophylls give us the brilliant autumn yellow of trees like our beloved North American paper birch (Betula papyrifera), its pure-white bark and golden leaves resplendent against a bright-blue October sky.

Other birches turn yellow in autumn, too. Here’s the delightful cherry or birch (Betula lenta) in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto. One of its alternative names, spice birch, recalls its historic use in the extraction of wintergreen oil from the roots. It is a native tree that should be grown much more.

Hornbeams are also members of the birch or Betulaceae family, so it’s not surprising that European hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) should turn a lovely yellow-gold in fall in the right conditions. This is ‘Fastigiata’, the pyramidal form.

What about maples? Well, perhaps the most ubiquitous yellow in our urban woodlands in eastern North America is the very one we wish had never been introduced, so invasive is it and so successful at elbowing out native trees. But there is no question that the Norway maple (Acer platanoides) does have beautiful yellow fall colour.

Sugar maples (Acer saccharum), of course, can be a mix of yellow and orange and even pure yellow like the one below, given the right chemistry.

The same can be said for many red maples (Acer rubrum), like the one below growing in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. (On a personal note, I was very disappointed to find a red maple I’d ordered as a city boulevard tree in front of my house – having been led to understand that it would be a blazing-scarlet fall companion to a ginkgo further down the boulevard – has fall leaves that turn dishwater yellow.)

Silver maple (Acer saccharinum) has fall foliage of a lovely soft-yellow in most autumns, occasionally becoming a richer gold.

So it’s no surprise that the pigments it adds to Acer x freemanii, the hybrid Freeman maple (Acer saccharinum x Acer rubrum), can often result in a tree with red-splotched yellow leaves, as below, rather than the rich-red Freeman maple I included in my blog on red fall colour.

The sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus), below, often turns yellow in autumn, but cannot be depended upon to do so consistently.

In Toronto, where I live, the small Tatarian maple (Acer tataricum) turns a light yellow in fall. (Note that this is not the related Amur maple, Acer ginnala, which generally turns reddish tones.)

The majestic native hickories turn yellow in fall. The golden canopy of the shagbark hickory (Carya ovata) is a stunning crown to its handsome, peeling bark.

And the bitternut hickory (Carya cordiformis), below, another underused native tree, also turns brilliant yellow in autumn.

I live under a 70-foot black walnut tree (Juglans nigra) whose large green fruit rain down on my roof and skylight like billiard balls in autumn, so I may not be fully appreciative of its generally good yellow fall colour, seen here at Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

The pinnate leaves of thornless honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos var. inermis) take on yellow autumn color. Doesn’t this one (likely the cultivar ‘Shademaster’) look gorgeous against the blue brick wall?

Speaking of pinnate leaves, is there any foliage more beautiful than that of the Kentucky coffee tree (Gymnocladus dioicus)? And it does this in fall!

The native pawpaw tree (Asimina triloba) bears interesting maroon flowers in spring, edible fruit in late summer (provided a male tree is planted near female trees in order to fertilize the flowers), and has beautiful yellow fall foliage.

Though under a half-century of siege from Dutch elm disease, our surviving American elms (Ulmus americana) put on a gorgeous autumn show, the leaves turning bright yellow to gold.

Sadly, the specimen in these two photos, photographed at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, had to be removed.

With its heart-shaped yellow fall leaves, the eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) is almost as lovely in autumn as it is in May, when its leafless branches are lined with magenta-pink pea flowers. This one is at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Have you ever seen a yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea) in flower in spring? It is a thing of transcendent beauty. This is my favourite specimen, at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. (Alas, this kind of show is not usually an annual thing, but happens every three years or so.)

But every autumn, the yellowwood’s leaves can be counted on for a good yellow show.

Similarly, our North American fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus) dangles its lovely white ribbons in spring, then turns yellow in October.
Generally, an urologist browse that pharmacy shop buy viagra online is a medical doctor who treats patients who suffer from bone ailments such as broken arms and artificial hips. Docherty has wide experience in successfully sildenafil tablets in india implementing innovation in both clinical operations and managed health care. One such issue which has bad effects later on is the sexual disorder by the name of the product, the brand name of the pill is cialis generic cipla which has made wonders in this field and has satisfied a number of people in many ways. Recently notwithstanding, erectile brokenness is found more, in buy female viagra teenage guys.

In late October in Toronto, our eastern witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) conjures up the year’s latest flowers, little yellow ribbons that often emerge as a double-bill with the shrub’s beautiful yellow fall leaves.

There are several witch hazels in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, and I love standing under them and looking through the rich golden canopy.

Speaking of golden canopies, you would be hard-pressed to find a more shimmering one than a forest of trembling aspens (Populus tremuloides) in autumn, something that tree-lovers in many parts of North America see as a spectacular geometry of white bark and yellow crowns. But I love the way their slim trunks create those graceful vertical lines in a forest of maples, and I especially love the fluttering sound of the leaves as they “tremble” in the wind.

There’s also a native conifer that turns yellow in autumn before losing its yellow needles. That would be our lovely, moisture-loving Eastern larch or tamarack (Larix laricina), shown here in the bog at Ontario’s Torrance Barrens, a 4700-acre dark sky preserve near my cottage on Lake Muskoka.

The lindens (Tilia sp.) turn yellow in autumn. This is littleleaf linden (Tilia cordata) just beginning its colour change.

Most tree-lovers would likely agree that the most spectacular yellow fall colour in a large tree comes from the ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba). Given that the tree is dioecious and the female produces smelly fruit, most nurseries sell only male forms. To see a tall, old ginkgo in full autumn regalia is simply breathtaking….

….and the contrast of those fan-shaped, yellow leaves with the dark spurs from which next year’s growth will emerge is quite transfixing.

Another Asian beauty for autumn brilliance is the Japanese katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum japonicum). A fine tree for a garden where it has room to reach its ultimate height of 60 feet (20 m), like this one at the Lake Joseph Golf Club near Port Carling, Ontario….

its heart-shaped leaves first turn yellow…..

….then darken to gold…..

…before falling to the ground in a brown carpet. During that period of senescence (the dying of the leaves), those who walk nearby or under its boughs will often (but not always*) notice a unique and quite strong fragrance that reminds them of burnt sugar or candy floss or caramel. This isn’t surprising, since the leaves contain the carbohydrate maltose – or malt sugar – and its concentration increases as the leaves turn color, when the scent is often released as an aromatic. The fragrance is ephemeral and transient, and *many people have never had the experience of inhaling it, but those who do don’t easily forget it.

Less well-known than the katsura is the Amur cork tree (Phellodendron amurense), a good, hardy tree for a small garden and lovely in autumn, when the yellow leaves frame the lustrous blue fruit.

As mentioned in my blog on orange fall colour, some of the Japanese cherries turn beautiful colours in autumn. The weeping Higan cherry (Prunus x subhirtella ‘Pendula’) is one that takes on a delicious yellow gold.

How about a few vines that turn yellow in autumn? One that many gardeners love for its lacy, white flower clusters in summer is climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea anomala ssp. petiolaris). This specimen is at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Bittersweet (Celastrus sp.) turns a luminous gold in fall as the fruit capsules are opening to reveal the orange berries. I wish I could say this is the native North American vine (C. scandens), but sadly I learned many years after buying and planting it that I (like a lot of fleeced customers) had bought the invasive Asian lookalike (C. orbiculatus). Fortunately, it does not seem to have spread in my garden or in the neighbourhood, even though the cardinals adore the fruit.

There are a few good perennials that take on yellow hues in fall. The most spectacular belong to the genus Amsonia, whose icy-blue late spring flowers are indeed lovely, but its renown has come from the spectacular colour change in fall (when grown in full sunshine and moist soil). This is Arkansas bluestar (Amsonia hubrichtii).

And this is eastern bluestar (Amsonia tabernaemontana), in the company of a fall-blooming New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae cv) in the Piet Oudolf-designed entry border at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum) is a favourite native perennial of mine, and very happy in my partly-shaded border. From late October into November, its gracefully arching leaves turn a beautiful, pale yellow.

For all their ubiquity as foliage accents in our gardens, hostas aren’t always appreciated for their lush, gold decaying leaves in autumn. This magical transformation tends to happen more with the thick leaves of the blue hostas, or those that have similar substance. Below is ‘Frances Williams’ in late October, jauntily sporting a Washington thorn (Crataegus phaenopyrum) leaf as a hat.

Some ornamental grasses will turn yellow in fall, and none is better than our native switch grass (Panicum virgatum). What a lovely addition this grass is to a naturalistic garden.

Finally, from my own front meadow, come the succulent leaves of sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ (Hylotelephium telephium ‘Herbstfreude’). Long after the bees have disappeared and the spent flowerheads have turned a rich burgundy, there is this brief yellow farewell to summer.

Like all the trees and shrubs above whose green leaves have worked hard for months to manufacture the sugars that feed the plants, it is now time for that mellow yellow goodbye. Let the snows come.

Fall Foliage: The Reds

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Janet

I adore October. It seems that the chaos and physical demands of summer in the garden have finally subsided to a manageable few, and there’s time to enjoy what John Keats praised in his lovely ode To Autumn: “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun…” Best of all, for us here in the northeast – provided there’s been ample summer sunshine coupled with sufficient rainfall and a smattering of cool fall nights – blazing colour then decorates the forests and gardens like jewel-toned filigree, a brilliant swan song to summer.

I’ve been photographing autumn-coloured trees, shrubs and perennials for a long time, both in botanical gardens and in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, a fabulous 200-acre arboretum just a 5-minute drive from my house. So I’ve amassed a large inventory of the very best plants and have filed them by their specific pigment change, whether red, orange or yellow. (More on that below). In fact, I’ve even made up some small cards that group many of these fall lovelies by very narrow gradations. Here is today’s blog colour.

Leaves, of course, are made up of tissues, tissues are made up of cells, and the cells responsible for leaf colour are those which contain the chloroplasts. These contain the chlorophyll pigment necessary to power the complicated harvesting of solar energy, groundwater and atmospheric carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, which produces the sugars necessary for the tree’s survival. Chlorophyll absorbs energy in the form of sunlight, but only in specific portions of the spectrum; the parts it doesn’t utilize contain the green light waves, and it is these that are reflected back at us, giving the apparent green colour to leaves. Once the days shorten and temperatures cool in fall, photosynthesis ceases and the chlorophyll breaks down. But leaves also contain secondary pigments which absorb some of the other spectral light waves during photosynthesis, and take longer to break down. It is these pigments, the yellow and orange carotenoids that appear in sugar maples (shown in the aerial photo below near my own cottage garden on Lake Muskoka, Ontario), silver maples, beeches,elms, birches,tamaracks, hickories and countless other fall-turning trees, shrubs, and even perennials like Solomon’s seal. (I’ll be dealing with orange and yellow fall colours in two upcoming blogs).

Notice I haven’t said anything about red colours yet. Botanists have come to a different conclusion on why leaves turn a brilliant red, since anthocynanin pigments – which are water-soluble and absorb all spectral light except red, therefore reflect that hue back at our eyes – are not present in the leaf until late in the season, when they synthesize in the tissues as photosynthesis comes to an end. It is theorized that, in certain species, anthocyanins act as a kind of sunscreen for leaves (see the explanation in the second paragraph of this report), shielding the chloroplasts from damaging UV rays as they prepare to senesce (wither and drop) during late season photosynthesis. The salient conclusion from the report: “Because anthocyanins strongly absorb blue-green, the accumulation of anthocyanins in red autumn leaves may attenuate the quality and quantity of light captured by chlorophylls and carotenoids as leaves senesce. The major activity during leaf senescence is nutrient resorption for leaf production during the next growing season. Thus, protection from excess irradiance may play a role in limiting oxidative damage that may interfere with the retrieval of inorganic nutrients from senescing autumn leaves.”

Enough of the science. Now, I’d like to have you join me as I paint the town (and garden) a rich, ruby-red with some of my favourite trees, shrubs and perennials. Let’s start with a genus that most of us enjoy, whether it’s in our own gardens or in the woods around us: tbe maple (Acer). Perhaps the most iconic – and earliest to turn colour – is the red maple (Acer rubrum), beloved by Henry David Thoreau (1817-62), who wrote in his famous journals: “How beautiful, when a whole tree is like some great scarlet fruit full of ripe juices, every leaf, from lowest limb to topmost spire, all aglow, especially if you look towards the sun! What more remarkable object can there be in the landscape? Visible for miles, too fair to be believed. If such a phenomenon occurred but once, it would be handed down by tradition to posterity, and get into the mythology at last.” How lucky, then, for Thoreau and for us that most red maples turn colour each fall – though not all turn red. On my lakeshore in central Ontario, neighbouring red maples turn bright red and bright yellow – reflecting the sex of the trees, since Acer rubrum employs a variety of reproductive strategies, including male, female and hermaphrodite trees. Here are three leaves I collected beneath various red maples in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

And here is my favourite red maple in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

And let me add that standing under the boughs (below) of that red maple in October inspires a flush of romance in me not dissimilar to Thoreau’s effusive praise for the tree.

When red maple is crossed with silver maple (Acer saccharinum), you get a hybrid called Freeman maple (Acer x freemanii), some of which turn a copper apricot, or lemon yellow streaked with red, or pure red, when a good selection such as ‘Autumn Blaze’ is cloned. Freeman maples are fast-growing like silver maples but do not break as easily, and have the advantage (usually) of excellent autumn foliage, like the one below in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Notice the silver maple influence on the leaf shape.

Japan has give us a number of lovely ornamental maples. The best pure-red autumn color tends to come from the wine-leaved forms of Acer palmatum such as ‘Bloodgood’, or any in the Atropurpureum group. This is what I found one November as I visited the cemetery. You can understand what it looked like the previous day before frost hit the tree and caused it to drop its leaves (abscission is the scientific term) in this perfect red carpet.

Many of the threadleaf Japanese maples (Acer palmatum Dissectum Group) will turn red, though more often a salmon-orange. This is the cultivar ‘Waterfall’ in a good autumn at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

And I love the lacy leaves of the fullmoon maple (Acer japonicum) cultivar ‘Aconitifolium’ as they turn red in fall. This one was at Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

Ultra-hardy Amur maple (Acer ginnala) will often turn bright red, especially the selected forms. Here it is at Toronto Botanical Garden, showing variation in side-by-side shrubs.

Sweet gum trees (Liquidambar styraciflua) often turned mottled shades of red, orange and yellow – and those are my favourite. But some, like the one below at the Toronto Botanical Garden, turn clear red.

Sour gum or tupelo trees (Nyssa sylvatica) are at the northern edge of their hardiness zone in my part of the world, so aren’t often seen. But there are two in Mount Pleasant that I adore in autumn.

Oak trees are variable in colour (and the leaves contain tannins, which causes them to persist as brown leaves through winter) but good red-russet fall hues are often seen in white oaks (Quercus alba), like the majestic old specimen below, at Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

And the Shumard oak (Quercus shumardii) will usual colour deep cherry-red in autumn, like this young tree at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Serviceberry trees and shrubs (Amelanchier sp.) also turned a mottled scarlet-orange in early autumn – a delightful sayonara from such useful native species, with their lovely edible fruits. These are the changing leaves of Allegheny serviceberry (Amelanchier laevis).

Antitumor antibiotics block order cialis online certain enzyme and cancer cell changes, thus affecting DNA. why not try this out viagra without prescription A single this kind of nervousness cure is what as known as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). What Gout Is, in the lives of millions of people around the globe have started using the services that are being offered to them cialis de prescription by an online pharmacy store. Chronic nonbacterial prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome(CNP/CPPS) The symptoms of this type are similar with the symptoms of purchase cialis on line chronic bacterial prostatitis.
Moving on to the dogwoods, here is the Kousa dogwood from Asia (Cornus kousa) with its rich red colour and next year’s buds clearly visible.

Our native alternate-leafed or pagoda dogwood (Cornus alternifolia) takes on a wine-red color in fall. This one at the Toronto Botanical Garden gets a nice contrast boost from its background of a redbud (Cercis canadensis) turning yellow for fall.

And let’s not forget the common shrub we often love to hate for its wandering ways, staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina). Here it is during a brilliant October sunset on the granite ridge behind my Lake Muskoka cottage.

Burning bush (Euonymus alatus) with its neon pinkish-red tones is probably the most spectacular of the fall-coloured shrubs. Below are two views of the dwarf burning bush (E. alatus ‘Compactus’) hedge in my own front garden. Here it is from the east…

…and from the west, in another year with more red than pink in the mix.

Oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) usually turns a lovely, deep plum-red in autumn.

Many of the Asian witch hazels take on good red-russet tones in autumn. (Eastern witch hazel, on the other hand, turns a luminous gold.) This is Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Diane’.

Barberries – love ‘em or hate ‘em – take on a variety of rich autumn tones, from scarlet to orange. This is the Berberis thunbergii ‘Rosy Glow’ in my own garden, consorting nicely with fall monkshood (Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’).

Forthergilla is another native northeastern shrub that takes on amazingly beautiful, mottled fall colours. Here is dwarf fothergilla (F. gardenii) in my own garden, showing more red than the oranges and golds that often combine with it.

And what about vines? Probably the best-colouring is our native Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). In a site with lots of sun, like the building wall below at the Toronto Botanical Garden, you can expect a stunning red show in October. Where there’s a little more shade, this vine takes on beautiful, mellow tones of burgundy and soft pink.

Let me finish with a few perennials whose leaves do their own autumn thing. Here is one of the better cranesbills, Geranium wlassovianum, with its leaves just beginning to turn red. (This is also a fabulous pollinator plant; the bees adore it.)

Some ornamental grasses undergo colour change in fall. One of the finest is ‘Shenandoah’ switch grass (Panicum virgatum), which colors a deep red-burgundy.

And my final red star is bergenia (Bergenia cordifolia), whose evergreen leaves often turn a rich red or russset in fall…..

that lasts right through the snows of winter until spring, when they can do double-duty as partners to some of the tiny spring bulbs, like the glory-of-the-snow (Scilla forbesii) here at the Toronto Botanical Garden.

Janet Davis Explores Colour

In the garden & the world

Category Archives: Vines

A Chilean Wine Tour

Orange: Three Fruits & a Fish – Part Two

La Vie en Rose(s)

Fall Foliage: Yellows & Golds

Fall Foliage: The Reds

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: